This week in Tampa: Beach Boys, New Edition, Creed, A Taste of Pinellas and more

After a so-so concert month in April (no offense, Rammstein), the Tampa Bay music calendar heats up big time in May, and it all starts this weekend with a slate of massive shows around Tampa Bay. Maybe the biggest: A Taste of Pinellas, featuring Sheryl Crow (above), All-American Rejects, Dashboard Confessional, Ziggy Marley, Big and Rich and Joe Nichols, among others.

And let's not forget tbt*'s 2012 Ultimate Local Artists Showcase on Friday, with Sleepy Vikings, the Groves, Drake and Sofia and Crash Mitchell! We're once again partnering with the Rock the Park folks for the free showcase at Curtis Hixon Park in downtown Tampa.

Here to walk you through it all is Carole Liparoto...

The Beach BoysSATURDAY 8 p.m. Straz Center for the Performing Arts, 1010 N MacInnes Place, Tampa. $49.50-$295.50. (813) 229-7827. After decades of mental breakdowns and bitter lawsuits and raging streaks of jealousy, Beach Boys Brian Wilson and Mike Love are once again sharing a rock band, a legacy. Wilson is regarded, along with the McCartneys and Lennons of the pop world, as one of music’s true geniuses. He built the Beach Boys, imagining lush, teen-angel harmonies that reinvented radio. Love, 71, never stopped touring with the surf-pop pioneers, and yet he is often blamed for snuffing out the creative spirit of the band, diffusing its genius in lieu of wheezing nostalgia tours and, even worse, Kokomo. And yet, the Boys, along with Al Jardine, Bruce Johnston and David Marks, are back anyway. On Saturday, they’ll bring their 50th anniversary tour (even though they formed in 1961 in Hawthorne, Calif.) and all those hang-ten hits — Good Vibrations, God Only Knows, Wouldn’t It Be Nice, Sloop John B, Surfin’ U.S.A. — to Tampa’s Straz Center for the Performing Arts. -- Sean Daly

A Taste of Pinellas FRIDAY 5 p.m. featuring Big and Rich, Joe Nichols, Connor Christian and Southern Gothic. SATURDAY 3 p.m. featuring Sheryl Crow, Ziggy Marley, RPM. SUNDAY 12 p.m. featuring All-American Rejects, Dashboard Confessional (solo acoustic), The Kinected, A Rocket to the Moon. Vinoy Park, 501 Fifth Ave. NE, St Petersburg. $20 and up. (727) 823-8534,.tasteofpinellas.com. The entertainment at this year’s A Taste of Pinellas fest is as neatly packaged as the seafood empanadas on the menu. Friday night goes country with Big Kenny Alphin and John Rich, the costumed duo muddying up country boundaries with splashes of rock, “hick-hop,” and comedy. No doubt you’ve heard Save a Horse (Ride a Cowboy), or at the very least, seen the phrase slapped across the bumper of a Ford F-250. Saturday night, take in airy, summer-style ditties from Ziggy Marley and Sheryl Crow, and Sunday go emo with Dashboard Confessional (a.k.a. Chris Carrabba solo and acoustic) and “gives-you-hell rockers” the All-American Rejects.

Creed SATURDAY 9 p.m. Ruth Eckerd Hall, 1111 McMullen-Booth Road, Clearwater. $39.50-$69.50. (727) 791-7400. After Creed’s own fans sued the band for $2 million in a class-action lawsuit over a dreadful Chicago show in 2002, (“They totally sucked,” stated one plaintiff), we were certain Creed and its albums were destined for the bargain bin. Ten years later, the Florida act is back on its game performing blockbuster album Human Clay (With Arms Wide Open, Higher) in its entirety, along with hits from My Own Prison, Weathered and Full Circle. The tour reviews have been pretty positive thus far. So, whether you hate to love ’em or love to hate ’em for preachy tunes, leather pants and heavy borrowing from Eddie Vedder, you can’t argue that Creed, one of the most commercially successful rock bands of all time, isn’t trying to do right by its longtime fans.

Gipsy Kings TUESDAY 8 p.m. Ruth Eckerd Hall, 1111 McMullen-Booth Road, Clearwater. $69.50 and up. (727) 791-7400. Working the strings like crazed puppeteers, Gipsy Kings bring flamenco pop-rock to life Tuesday in Clearwater. While plenty of artists have toasted the proverbial nomad (see Willie Nelson’s On the Road Again, Dion’s Wanderer or Johnny Cash’s I’ve Been Everywhere Man), it’s the Reyes and Bailiardos families, descendants from Spanish gypsies who fled to France during the Spanish Civil War, doing the wanderer way proud well into the 21st century. Since releasing Bamboleo, a three-and-a-half minute version of a popular Venezuelan folk song, in '87, the OG gitano rock band has enjoyed international crossover superstardom. A flamenco rendition of Hotel California is in the arsenal, too.

The Mighty Mighty Bosstones With Whole Wheat Bread, Victims of Circumstance, Rise of Saturn FRIDAY 7 p.m. The Ritz, 1503 Seventh Ave., Ybor City. $23 and up. (813) 247-2555. When we think about 2-Tone ska revivalists The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, we can’t help picture the band’s performance of Where’d You Go? in coming-of-age classic Clueless. In fact, we’re still totally buggin’. Behind throaty snarler Dicky Barrett, the well-dressed men of Boston continue their sassy, brassy ways. That’s the impression that we get, anyway.

Mayer Hawthorne and the County With The Stepkids MONDAY 7 p.m. State Theatre, 687 Central Ave., St. Petersburg. $16-$18. (727) 895-3045. “Most of the best music ever made came out of Detroit,” says singer, producer and multi-instrumentalist Mayer Hawthorne, who counts Isaac Hayes, Leroy Hutson and Barry White among his influences. Mayer Hawthorne grew up in Ann Arbor, Mich., just outside of Detroit, and looks back fondly on father-son drives with the region’s rich soul and jazz playing on the radio. The Walk, for one, shows Hawthorne as a fine modern interpreter of classic soul sounds.

The Bricks Star Wars Tribute Party Featuring DJ Cub FRIDAY 10 p.m. The Bricks, 1327 E Seventh Ave., Tampa. Free. (813) 247-1785. The Star Wars Tribute events have been going down all week at Ybor’s The Bricks, but folks have been waiting to culminate the party with the phrase, “May the fourth be with you.” On Friday, they’ll get that chance. DJ Cub will get his geek on with plenty of interplanetary sampling Friday. Costumes encouraged.

Rock the Park With Sleepy Vikings, The Groves, Crash Mitchell and Drake and SofiaFRIDAY 6:30 p.m. Curtis Hixon Park, downtown Tampa. Free. rocktheparktampa.com A few weeks ago, we were at tbt* picked our 2012 Ultimate Local Artists, all of whom play some of the best music in the local scene. On Friday, four of them will come together for a free edition of Tampa’s monthly Rock the Park concert on a special night. Sleepy Vikings have an acclaimed sound they call “southern shoegaze” that has taken them on tour around the country and out to South by Southwest. The Groves have an earthy, blues-rocky sound reminiscent of My Morning Jacket and the Black Keys. Drake and Sofia play indie pop that’s driving yet delicate, and still catchy as all hell. And longtime Tampa troubadour Crash Mitchell returns to the local stage with his usual collection of anthemic cowpunk singalongs. -- Jay Cridlin

Safety Harbor Art and Music Center groundbreaking celebration Featuring Rebekah Pulley, Shaun Hopper, TG Weger, Tony Wylie, Imani Woomera, Aimee, Shannon Whitworth, Gareth Asher, more SUNDAY 2:30 p.m. 8th Street Pub, 103 Eighth Ave., Safety Harbor. Free (donations accepted). (727) 725-4018 or safetyharborartandmusiccenter.com. A new art and music center in Safety Harbor gets one step closer to lift-off. The Safety Harbor Art and Music Center (also known as SHAMc) is being developed by long-time Safety Harbor residents Todd and Kiaralinda Ramquist. The couple plans to turn a small historic home in downtown Safety Harbor into a center with a stage for intimate concerts as well as gallery to showcase art works. The project even received an additional $50,000 from a Pepsi Refresh Project grant. To celebrate the ground-breaking, honey-voiced troubadour Rebekah Pulley and a half a dozen top-notch locals perform.